Samara’s Reviews > One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School > Status Update
Samara
is on page 169 of 304
I could not pump myself up the same way for the next test two days off. By the morning I was a little depressed about the mistakes I'd made on the Torts exam, more of which seemed to occur to me on the hour. It was not that I felt that I'd done poorly; I just realized that I'd missed the chance to do very well. Nor did I feel any of the sharpening effects of first-time apprehensions. I'd seen the monster now.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:03PM
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Samara
is on page 174 of 304
Correlations between exam success and worthwhile achievements in the practice of law are speculative at best…the narrow and arbitrary nature of exams will continue to dictate a narrow and arbitrary means of selection for training for the bar. And that is a peculiar state of affairs for a profession and an education which claim to concern themselves with rationality and fairness.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:22PM
Samara
is on page 174 of 304
Right now admissions at most American law schools are based on predictions of how well applicants will do in school, which is to say how high they will rank on exams. Those forecasts, based on statistical formulae that combine LSAT scores and college grades, are often quite accurate. But that amounts only to saying that American law schools admit people who will be good test-takers rather than good attorneys.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:22PM
Samara
is on page 173 of 304
"But over the long haul," …”[the exams] do give you some reading on the way your mind works in certain situations— one skill. And if you're making a career choice—or if someone is making decisions about you—it's better to know that than nothing at all.”
— Dec 10, 2025 03:19PM
Samara
is on page 172 of 304
But some people could not be convinced that lapses were expected, and walked around for weeks making wan jokes about having their bags packed.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:15PM
Samara
is on page 172 of 304
And instead they had been intellectual quick-draw contests, frantic exercises that seemed to place no premium on the sustained insight and imagination which I most admired in others, and when they occurred, felt proudest of in myself.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:11PM
Samara
is on page 172 of 304
Finals were regarded with an institutional earnestness which had left my classmates and me believing for months that the tests would offer some consummate evaluation, not simply of how well we'd learned, but—almost mystically-of the depths of our capacity in the law. Exams were something to point to, a proving ground for all the hard and sincere labor.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:11PM
Samara
is on page 171 of 304
And in part, my disappointment really had little to do with the tests themselves. In reviewing, I'd seen how much of my elaborate daily preparation for classes had not been worthwhile. The finest points of the cases, which I'd stayed up to all hours struggling to comprehend, were not merely irrelevant to the exams, but had also proved to be beyond the grasp of my memory.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:09PM
Samara
is on page 171 of 304
In the aftermath of exams, I felt bitter and cheated. After the long buildup, some kind of letdown was probably inevitable.
— Dec 10, 2025 03:09PM
Samara
is on page 171 of 304
“I feel rotten. I feel wasted. I have finished my first term at the law.”
— Dec 10, 2025 03:07PM
Samara
is on page 166 of 304
Exams represented a kind of opening (or closing) world of opportunity-Law Review, clerkships, jobs, honor, prestige-and I both dearly hoped for and dreaded losing the chance at all of those things.
— Dec 10, 2025 02:55PM
